


The Halo Effect, Revisited

by Ms_E_Vye



Category: Houdini & Doyle (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7562788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_E_Vye/pseuds/Ms_E_Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Appearances didn't mean much to Harry."</p>
<p>A character study, and a sort-of love letter to Adelaide Stratton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Halo Effect, Revisited

**Author's Note:**

> What I've gotten to see of Houdini and Doyle so far I've loved. I think it's enjoyable storytelling, with enjoyable performances. 
> 
> I'm honestly not sure where this short piece fits into canon, but I had fun inhabiting the space for a bit anyways. Thanks in advance for reading!

Appearances didn't mean much to Harry. Living and working as he did - as a master illusionist - ensured that he was not overly awed by the surface of things. No matter how convincing, appealing, _glittering_ the façade, Harry knew to take a closer look. He had a critical eye. He could uncover tricks, and he could strip away the lovely veneer of an ugly reality.

This sort of vision - this refusal to be swayed by appearances - affected more than Harry's professional life. He couldn't confine his criticism to the work of would-be illusionists. Rather, the same energy he expended in picking apart shoddy sleights of hand and stagecraft was reinvested in unraveling social interactions - especially those interactions that occurred in the upper crust, in fine society. Even as Harry's fame grew and he began to move in increasingly rarefied circles, his head wasn't turned by wealth and finery. Outward signs of gentility and wealth did not equal goodness, Harry knew.

And the same could be said for beauty, really. Beauty - like wealth - could be highly deceiving, and Harry didn't trust the appearance of it on principle.

So, given his mistrust in appearances, it was odd that Harry should be so fixated on Constable Adelaide Stratton's. That day, on the underground, he had cited her "obvious beauty." His comment was meant to unsettle her a bit - to motivate her to engage in another truth trade. But, in the days, weeks, months following their initial acquaintance, the only truth Harry was left with was this rather uncomfortable one: her fine features, and the silhouette of her graceful figure, were never far from his thoughts.

Harry made an effort to disentangle Adelaide's beauty from assumptions about her personality, her character. He failed repeatedly. He couldn't help but read intelligence in her lovely face. He couldn't help but detect kindness in her eyes and in her careful movements as she interacted with crime victims and suspects alike.

In other words, Harry, despite his best efforts, couldn't divorce Adelaide's appearance, the line of her beautiful profile, from his gut belief in her absolute _goodness_. That wasn't to suggest that Adelaide had nothing to hide - that she was completely without secrets. (The mystery of her marriage, if nothing else, revealed that for the lie it was.) She was a human being. Of course she had secrets. And yet none of those secrets could diminish Harry's sense of her goodness, any more than they could detract from her physical beauty. Adelaide's beauty, he found, transcended appearances. This discovery made Harry profoundly uncomfortable.

"Something the matter?" Adelaide asked, head turned slightly over her shoulder as she sat, sorting through paperwork at her station desk. She had caught Harry staring.

"Hm? Not at all. Just...puzzling through the case," Harry said. He found it difficult to look away from the curve of her neck. A strand of hair had come loose from her updo.

"Well, take a seat and get to work, if you will. I need not remind you how time sensitive this case is," she said, turning back around, finishing quietly, "There are children involved, Houdini."

Harry dragged a chair to the front of her desk. He sat and waited to meet her gaze before replying, "I know."

Her eyes, raised to his, were brown and warm. Beautiful.

Adelaide nodded once, an acknowledgment.

Harry and Adelaide resumed work in silence, paging through case files. Their objective was, of course, to solve the crime at hand - to see through appearances and arrive at the truth.


End file.
